Random thoughts about a variety of subjects from a couple of middle-aged white guys who are not qualified to comment on much. Lack of credentials never stopped us from having a take before, nor will it now.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Al Gore: Now my hero! (not kidding)

Ex-senator, ex-vice president, ex-presidential candidate, and current Nobel laureate Al Gore recently made a speech, typical of many of his other speeches, which I find to be an absolute treasure trove of good sense.

In said speech, delivered in Washington and down the street from the White House, Gore challenged the US to abandon electricity generated by burning fossil fuels, and to do it within a decade.

Of course, the critics are coming out of the woodwork to point out how completely impossible this is, how trillions of dollars of infrastructure can't be made obsolete in a decade, blah, blah, blah. I know there are legitimate points being made here, and I know this wouldn't be easy, inexpensive, or trauma-free.

But it can be done. More so, it HAS to be done.

Oil and fossil fuels are evil in so many ways - 75% (I'm guessing, but I bet I'm close) of our environmental problems come from fossil fuels, our foreign policy is massively restricted because of our oil dependence, our economy is held hostage by our oil suppliers who, in more than a few cases, hate us and want us dead. The roots of many of our problems lie right here, in our total dependence of this stuff.

It's so obvious to me, and I have been saying it for a long time: We MUST get away from fossil fuels. Wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, hydro, all nice little niche sources. But nuclear - here's our short term answer. We know how to do this, we know how to do it safely. Is it perfect? Hell no - we still don't know what to do with the waste. But is that more dangerous than continuing to burn coal and fuel oil? I don't think so.

Gore is right, man. We can do this, and we can do it in a decade if we REALLY want to. NOW is the time.

What a shocking turn of events: Al Gore is now the Official Hero of this blog! Here is the speech, and the wecansolveit.org Web site.